“Fuck,” Vasily growls, sending the message to Volodya as he steers us to the dock. As soon as we’re close enough, he tosses the rope to Ilya, who quickly ties us off. We step onto the dock as Volodya and his men take off running.
Grabbing my gun, I follow after them with Vasily right behind me while the others start piling the new weapons into the three black SUVs we have parked and ready to go. Racing around the corner, I stop short when I see Volodya with a man pressed up against the building and a knife at his throat. I recognize the blade. It’s a painful-looking thing with a serrated edge—my brother’s favorite and one I’ve seen him use to end many lives. This sorry bastard is about to add his name to the list.
“The other guy took off,” Volodya says. “Nikolai and Oleg went after him.”
As if on cue, I see movement further down and soon they’re walking up with a man between them. His hands are already tied behind his back.
Vasily walks up to him as Oleg and Nikolai stop, letting the man fall to his knees. “Anyone else here tonight?”
“No, just us,” the man on the ground says. He’s trying to act like he’s not scared, but he definitely is. His wide eyes dart around, and he keeps looking at the blade pressed to his friend’s throat.
Vasily calls one of the shooters on the roof and asks him in Russian what’s going on. After he hangs up, he tells us that Volodya started running after them right as they were spotted and that there were only two men. Switching to English, he asks, “Who do you work for?”
“We don’t work for anyone,” the guy says like a real dumbass. “We were just coming down here to buy some drugs.”
The only person surprised when my brother pulls his gun out is the idiot on his knees. The shot is quiet since he’s using a silencer, but even if it had been loud, no one in this part of the city is going to be calling the cops. The guy against the wall groans when he looks over and sees the large hole in his friend’s head.
“Fuck, man,” he says in a shaky voice. “He was telling the truth.”
I laugh and shake my head at his stupidity. “We only need one of you to torture for information,” I explain to him because the guy obviously needs some help. “Unfortunately for you, you’re the only one left. This will go a lot easier for you if you start telling the truth.”
Oleg and Nikolai drag the body off to dump it in the ocean while I walk over to tie up the man’s hands. His neck is bloody because Volodya keeps his knives really fucking sharp, but it’s a superficial wound, and he won’t be dying anytime soon, no matter how much he may wish it.
“Heard about your girl,” Volodya says in Russian. “I’m looking forward to meeting her tomorrow night. Maddie’s going to be so excited.”
I look over at a grinning Vasily. “You two are like a couple of gossiping old ladies.”
They both laugh while the guy with his hands tied looks at us like we’re a bunch of psychos. He’s not completely wrong. We drag him into the empty building and get to work. Turns out they weren’t just there to buy drugs. Evidently we have a motorcycle gang who thought it would be a good idea to steal some of our weapons.
I smack the bloody, beaten face to try and wake him back up. “Stay with me, John,” I tell him. “You can’t die just yet. You still haven’t told us where we can find them.”
He moans something incoherent as blood bubbles up from his mouth and then his whole body tenses.
“Fuck,” I say. “He’s having a heart attack.”
“Goddamn it,” Volodya mutters, pulling his knife from John’s thigh, but the man is too far gone to even feel it.
“I should’ve let the other guy live. It’s hard to detect a weak heart, though,” Vasily says in his own defense. “He’d looked healthy enough.”
“People don’t do enough cardio nowadays,” I say. “You gotta keep that heart healthy.”
When we drag him out, it’s after midnight, and all I can think about is Evie. I wonder what she’s doing right now, and I decide on the spot that I’m going to pay her a surprise visit at the library. A couple of the guys take the body from us to go weigh it down and dump it. Looking down, I see blood on my hands and arms, but there’s just a little bit of blood splatter on my clothes, very easy to miss if you’re not looking for it. I walk to the docks and lean down so I can scrub the blood off me. When it’s washed off, I stand back up and face them, shaking my arms to get the water off.
“You can’t tell I just tortured a guy, right?”
My brothers look at me and laugh. “You’re going to have to tell her what you do,” Volodya says.
“I will, but not tonight.”
“Don’t wait too long before you spring it on her,” Vasily warns. “The sooner you know if she can handle it, the better.”
“She can handle it,” I tell them. I don’t add that she has no choice because I’m not letting her go. She’ll learn to be okay with it. She’ll have to.
Ilya and Nikolai take the boat back with Vasily while Volodya drives me back to get my car. His ‘69 cherry-red Camaro is in pristine condition, and he laughs as he speeds down the road. Once on the highway, he weaves through traffic, getting us back to Vasily’s in record time. Before he drops me off, he smacks my shoulder and says, “See you tomorrow night.”
“Don’t make me regret telling you.”
“You didn’t tell me, you little shit. I had to hear it first from Ilya and Nikolai and then from Vasily.” He raises a dark brow at me. “You might want to tell me something no one else knows before I start feeling left out.”
